WolfWalkers and Irish Mythology
The Lycanthropic Lore Behind the Oscar-Nominated Animated Feature
It was only a matter of time before I wrote a post about WolfWalkers, one of my favorite films (animated or otherwise) of the past year.
Then, a couple of days ago, I saw the news: Tomm Moore and the other creative geniuses at the Kilkenny, Ireland-based animation studio Cartoon Saloon had released a new book: The Art of WolfWalkers.
Written by Charles Solomon, the author of several other books that explore the origins of animated features (including The Art of Frozen, The Toy Story Films: An Animated Journey, and The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation), The Art of WolfWalkers offers a behind-the-scenes look at the research, sketches, script notes, and storyboards that went into the creation of this Academy Award-nominated, hand-drawn masterpiece.
For me, perhaps not surprisingly, I was most interested in the section on the Irish folktales the filmmakers turned to for inspiration, most notably of which was The Man-Wolves of Ossory.
But look at me, getting ahead of myself. Let’s turn tail and lope back a few steps.
